Poems I wrote when no one was looking

The creators of Oops! (2008) offer another poetry collection for grade-schoolers and their families to read aloud. Filled with puns and rhymes, the verse blends the silly and the gross: Mom's or Dad's nose / I wouldn't pick either. New Yorker cartoonist Koren's large, black-and-white ink drawings are mischievous and immediate and extend the wordplay through the exaggerated body language of kids, surrounded by their families and pets. There are some wry contemporary references: Dad has a great GPS that helps the family maneuver through highways and intersections to the mall, but in the parking lot after shopping, the family gets lost trying to remember where the car is. The physicality of a young child's experience is a recurring theme ( The lint in my brother's navel . . . the wax in my brother's ears ), and it works perfectly with the wordplay ( Lend me everything but your ear ). Then there is the kid bored at the ballet: It's tutu much . . . prancing around in their undies . . . I couldn't hear a word. --Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2010 Booklist

Accompanied by Koren's impish, characteristically furry caricatures, Katz's comedic poems take aim at familiar experiences like family squabbling and avoiding homework, while offering child-centric observations about the world. In one, the speaker laments a sibling's painful violin playing: "She screeches and she scratches,/ and I know she's really trying./ Not sure if this is Clair de Lune,/ or outside, a cat's dying." Kids will revel in the gently wicked jokes ("Do not click!/ And do not clunk!/ I'm onomatopoeiaing") and mild gross-out gags ("Dad has a big nose./ Mom has a big nose..../ Mom or Dad's nose?/ I wouldn't pick either") that run throughout the collection. Ages 7-10. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Gr 3-5-As they did in Oops! (S & S, 2008), Katz and Koren once again craft a giggle-inducing collection of 100 humorous poems. Koren's cross-hatched cartoons feature long-nosed, wild-haired figures that match the playful goings-on in poems like "Fridge-a-Dare," "It Embarrasses Me, A Latte," and "Using My Noodle." Many selections feature wordplay, as in "Come for a Spell," which gets mileage from the difficulties in spelling Cincinnati, or "Not-So-Special K," with its plea to drop the silent "k." Many play on bodily functions, such as "Pleasant Dreams, Unpleasant Streams": "When I change the baby,/I stand there and I pray/that he lets me do it quickly/and he doesn't start to spray." This collection should prove popular with readers who've enjoyed the work of Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, and Douglas Florian.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Koren's benignly maniacal drawings are a swell fit for Katz's collection of a hundred first-person punch-line poems that riff on such subjects as hapless parents, irritating siblings, and belly-button lint. Unabashed pun pleasure, jaunty titles, and a fresh take on the puzzles and ironies of the ordinary world give this collection its energy. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Katz and Koren follow up Oops! (2008) with another set of 100 or so rhymed (usually) knee-slappers paired to scribbly ink drawings. So brisk and varied is the mix of wordplay ("I don't like the ampersand. / You can't hold it in your h"), family humor and short meditations on food preferences, procrastination, peculiar traits of sibs, why there's only one in a "pair" of underwear and like topics that it's hard to stop readingor reading aloud, for that matter. It's all as child-friendly as can be, and the versifier's casual tone finds echoes in the illustrator's crosshatched sketches of figures showing a range of expressions while glancing bashfully or distractedly off to the side. As clever and funny as the poetry of Jack Prelutsky in his prime and less edgy than Shel Silverstein's, this deserves and should have no trouble drawing chuckles and belly laughs from a wide audience, even outside the confines of National Poetry Month. (Poetry. 7-11) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The creators of Oops! (2008) offer another poetry collection for grade-schoolers and their families to read aloud. Filled with puns and rhymes, the verse blends the silly and the gross: "Mom's or Dad's nose / I wouldn't pick either." New Yorker cartoonist Koren's large, black-and-white ink drawings are mischievous and immediate and extend the wordplay through the exaggerated body language of kids, surrounded by their families and pets. There are some wry contemporary references: Dad has a great GPS that helps the family maneuver through highways and intersections to the mall, but in the parking lot after shopping, the family gets lost trying to remember where the car is. The physicality of a young child's experience is a recurring theme ("The lint in my brother's navel . . . the wax in my brother's ears"), and it works perfectly with the wordplay ("Lend me everything but your ear"). Then there is the kid bored at the ballet: "It's tutu much . . . prancing around in their undies . . . I couldn't hear a word." Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

Accompanied by Koren's impish, characteristically furry caricatures, Katz's comedic poems take aim at familiar experiences like family squabbling and avoiding homework, while offering child-centric observations about the world. In one, the speaker laments a sibling's painful violin playing: "She screeches and she scratches,/ and I know she's really trying./ Not sure if this is Clair de Lune,/ or outside, a cat's dying." Kids will revel in the gently wicked jokes ("Do not click!/ And do not clunk!/ I'm onomatopoeiaing") and mild gross-out gags ("Dad has a big nose./ Mom has a big nose..../ Mom or Dad's nose?/ I wouldn't pick either") that run throughout the collection. Ages 7–10. (Oct.)

Gr 3–5—As they did in Oops! (S & S, 2008), Katz and Koren once again craft a giggle-inducing collection of 100 humorous poems. Koren's cross-hatched cartoons feature long-nosed, wild-haired figures that match the playful goings-on in poems like "Fridge-a-Dare," "It Embarrasses Me, A Latte," and "Using My Noodle." Many selections feature wordplay, as in "Come for a Spell," which gets mileage from the difficulties in spelling Cincinnati, or "Not-So-Special K," with its plea to drop the silent "k." Many play on bodily functions, such as "Pleasant Dreams, Unpleasant Streams": "When I change the baby,/I stand there and I pray/that he lets me do it quickly/and he doesn't start to spray." This collection should prove popular with readers who've enjoyed the work of Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, and Douglas Florian.—Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA